KINDSnacks » Tyler Breuerhttp://www.kindsnacks.com
KIND BlogWed, 25 Feb 2015 22:25:49 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.3#kindawesome Mobile Disaster Relief App: Interview with Scott Kurttilahttp://www.kindsnacks.com/blog/post/kindawesome-mobile-disaster-relief-app-interview-with-scott-kurttila/
http://www.kindsnacks.com/blog/post/kindawesome-mobile-disaster-relief-app-interview-with-scott-kurttila/#commentsMon, 07 Oct 2013 13:00:54 +0000http://www.kindsnacks.com/?p=17485It was the week after Superstorm Sandy had battered the New York City and New Jersey coastlines. I had been on the front line of disaster relief in the Rockaways and Long Beach. One of the biggest obstacles we faced was getting the right help to the people who needed it the most. I had been trying to coordinate large groups of volunteers to cover areas and help those in need. We did not realize how difficult that would be. Some of the neighborhoods were not getting the help and volunteers that they needed while other neighborhoods had too many volunteers—organizations were overlapping coverage in these areas. The coordinated efforts were becoming inefficient.

It was at one of the first Waves for Water volunteer meetings in Brooklyn where I met Scott Kurttila, a former Amazon employee turned consultant who now creates apps with his consulting agency, Sirqul. Many of us at that meeting were exchanging ideas for how to be more efficient with our outreach in neighborhoods when Scott spoke up and brought our attention to the Mobile Disaster Relief App (MDRA) which Sirqul created and had passed through the iTunes App store within days of the storm. The app allows users to see on a map which homes need help and more specifically, what sort of help and items they need. It was an incredible breakthrough and using the app helped our volunteer teams become more efficient and effective.

Scott is as humble as they come. In his late 40’s, his youthful enthusiasm projects a man much younger than his years. His MDRA app could have a major impact on disaster relief throughout the world. It could cut inefficiencies and save non-profits and disaster relief groups money. Scott and his team are changing the way disaster relief is deployed and their work will undoubtedly save countless lives in the future.

Tyler Breuer: How did you get into making apps?
Scott Kurttila: I started my own marketing consulting agency with a partner about four years ago. Along the way, we were getting requests for mobile apps from clients and so we found various programmers that could build them for us. Eventually, I learned how to create very simple apps on my own. About two years ago my entire business transitioned into nothing but apps.

What is the Mobile Disaster Relief App (MDRA)? How does it work?
The Mobile Disaster Relief App is basically a simple, user-generated “have/need,” map-based model. Anyone can enter a location on a map, add a photo, select a “have help” or a “need help” status, and then enter details. From there, volunteers giving relief after a disaster can use it to better know where to go, and what is needed where.

Where did the idea come from?
After Sandy, local surfers came together to help the hard-hit communities where we spend time surfing. We spent hours wandering around, not knowing where we could do the most good. Then Josh Rosen of Saturdays Surf shop said, “You gotta build an app that let’s people say what they need and where.” That’s where it all started. Fifteen minutes later I was on the phone with programmers and four-and-half days later, we launched.

How many people are involved in making an app like MDRA?
From a programming perspective, I’d say about two to four. The Sirqul platform is really powerful because it’s made up of various modules that really help speed development time because the programmers don’t need to reinvent the wheel. On the other side of the app, there are about another four or five people who have been helping me tremendously with so many non-programming aspects. It takes a lot of work to get the word out to various relief organizations to try and take it from where it is now—an idea—to reach its full potential.

What sort of future scenarios do you see the MDRA app being useful in?
I think that MDRA is most useful for what I’d call the “long-term” recovery efforts where an area needs to be rebuilt such as post-Sandy or the Oklahoma tornadoes. It helps keep the need for recovery and the story alive long after the mainstream media moves onto other stories. I don’t think MDRA is meant to be any kind of a replacement for the type of relief needed in the first hours of an emergency—that is better handled by things already in place. Recovery can take a year or more in many of these places so having “need aid” red pins on the map can help everyone from volunteers, contractors to electricians to see where they could potentially help.

How do you see MDRA affecting non-profits and disaster relief agencies? How exactly will they benefit from it?
It costs quite a bit of money and time for these groups to go out and help communities recover. I’ve heard that there can be as much as 80% inefficiency in disaster relief due to replication or repeated efforts. If these groups were able to just get 10% to 20% more efficient by being able to see who is going where and when, more people can be helped faster, saving everyone time and money in the recovery process. We noticed after Sandy that some people said they had been visited as many as 15-20 times per day by various groups coming by to see what they needed. Meanwhile, some friends of friends desperately needed digging out, no one had stopped by and this was four months after Sandy. By creating a map to enable relief groups to work together, I think it can help an area get better street-by-street coverage. It can keep people from slipping through the cracks by using a “divide and conquer” method where relief groups can more easily work together.

What about the people without smartphones? It seems like there might be a limit to the app. How do you get around that?
We’re still working on that part. As you know, we literally thought of it, started building 15 minutes after, and then launched four days later. Now we’re looking at making quite a few improvements—one of those will be to include a web and an Android version in addition to the current iPhone version. Down the road, we may add the ability to populate the map by sending a simple text message. I don’t know that any system is going to be 100% perfect, that’s why they call them “disasters” right? So we’re just trying to do the best we can to just make some improvements to how things are currently done, learn from there and make some more improvements over time.

What would you like to see happen with MDRA?
I’d love to get this next round of improvements out the door soon and then it would be nice to see some of the various relief organizations use it in a bigger way. We had some great feedback from the Waves for Water folks after Sandy, but the more usage and feedback we get, the more we can improve it. I’d also love to try and get some corporate sponsors on board to help us hire a couple of full-time people with our outreach to relief organizations. Right now, the entire app has been bootstrapped and pushed along while we’re doing our day jobs and that’s not a sustainable model for the long term, nor does it let MDRA reach its full potential.

I want to be able to create the best tool possible for the world to use after natural disasters to help speed up recovery. I think we also have to work with various groups and companies in order to get the most adoption or integration into existing systems possible. The goal is collaboration to help people in need in the best way possible. I think MDRA is just one piece of the overall picture.

Before we built the app, when our group of surfers showed up randomly at a home and dug out an entire basement in about 6 hours with 25 people, the homeowners were so gracious and thankful because they literally didn’t even know what they were going to do. If MDRA and other apps like it can help create more stories like that easier and faster, I think that’s a great thing to be striving toward.

]]>http://www.kindsnacks.com/blog/post/kindawesome-mobile-disaster-relief-app-interview-with-scott-kurttila/feed/0LAST CALL: Vote for Your Favorite SMASH 24-Hour Short Surf Filmhttp://www.kindsnacks.com/blog/post/last-call-vote-for-your-favorite-smash-24-hour-short-surf-film/
http://www.kindsnacks.com/blog/post/last-call-vote-for-your-favorite-smash-24-hour-short-surf-film/#commentsFri, 30 Aug 2013 13:00:40 +0000http://www.kindsnacks.com/?p=18931We partnered with the SMASH (Surf/Movies/Art/Shaping/History) Film Festival to host their first 24-hour short surf film competition. Five directors representing different New York surf communities came together to write, direct, shoot and edit a short film in only 24-hours. Today is your last chance to give an act of kindness by voting for your favorite film. Your vote will determine which team will receive a $1,000 grant from KIND to carry out an act of kindness for New York City’s coastlines, in partnership with Waves for Water. Watch the films, cast your vote and share these #kindawesome surf stories with your friends. Remember, voting ends tomorrow, August 31st so vote today!

UPDATE: Congratulations to the Winner of our SMASH 24-Hour Short Surf Film competition, Thomas Brookins and Davina Grincevicius for EBB & FLOW.

Tyler Breuer: What were your initial thoughts on being asked to enter the 24-Hour Short Surf Film Competition?

Ben Potter: It sounded like a special event to be a part of so it was a definite “Yes!”. I have been part of similar film competitions, but they didn’t have to do with surfing and they never had a production window as short as 24 hours. Pretty soon after accepting the challenge I started questioning what I had gotten myself into, but I think it all turned out alright.

What was the hardest part about the competition?

The toughest part was the time leading up to the competition day. I didn’t know what the prompt was for the films, so I spent a lot of time in the weeks leading up to the event thinking in circles about what we may end up making as a film. In a situation like that, all you can do is prepare for what you know you will need on the day. In this case, that included assembling my crew, reserving the appropriate equipment and finding actors—or rather convincing my buddy Ian to star in the film.

What did you like about the competition?

The actual day of competition was probably the best part. Once we received the prompt to incorporate an act of kindness in our films at the KIND offices, it was on. There was only action from there on out and all of the worries of the week before were gone.
I had had the idea of making a mock-umentary from before the contest began, and once I knew the prompt for the contest, I couldn’t resist following through with the idea. One of the good things about the competition was that there weren’t strict parameters for what you had to make. As long as it was created in response to doing the kind thing for the surf community, it was all good.

Do you think that this competition has changed your perspective at all on filmmaking?

It has definitely opened my eyes a little more to what can be achieved in a short window. That goes two ways because you can do a lot in 24 hours, but it won’t end up being your most polished work. I could say that “The Shralper” would have been much better if we didn’t have to make it in 24 hours, but the truth is, it probably would never have been made if it weren’t for this competition.

What sort of skills do you think are important to making a great film in under 24 Hours?

Probably the most important thing is to do your pre-production, so that when that 24-hour window begins, everything that can be in order, is in order. That way you can focus on actually making the film you wanted to make.

The second thing is having a crew that will stand by you throughout the day. I was fortunate enough to have a group of very talented classmates and friends who were stoked on the project. I cannot thank them enough for devoting their time, especially Hamilton Yu, my cinematographer and Henry Hayes, my editor, for staying up all night with me until the job was done.

What filmmakers are you influenced by?

When it comes to surf filmmaking, which is how I first started working in film, I always go back to Taylor Steele’s Sipping Jetstreams. Watching that movie inspired me to make surf films. If you haven’t seen it, go buy a copy. It definitely influenced me the most and continues to do so. For surf films, I also really like the work of Joe G, Jason Baffa, Thomas Campell and Kai Neville.

]]>http://www.kindsnacks.com/blog/post/last-call-vote-for-your-favorite-smash-24-hour-short-surf-film/feed/0Say Hello to Tyler Breuer of SMASH Productionshttp://www.kindsnacks.com/blog/post/say-hello-to-tyler-breuer/
http://www.kindsnacks.com/blog/post/say-hello-to-tyler-breuer/#commentsTue, 11 Jun 2013 13:00:27 +0000http://dev5.kindsnacks.com/?p=10806My name is Tyler Breuer. I never thought I’d say this but I’m now 30-something years old. I grew up surfing the beaches of Long Island and spent a considerable amount of time travelling and surfing abroad in my younger years. Eventually I settled back in New York and have been active in the New York surf scene for over a decade: organizing surfing events, movie premieres and managing my family’s business, Sundown Ski and Surf Shop on Long Island. I was one of the founding members of the New York Surf Film Festival and am now the Chief Producer for SMASH Productions (Surf/Movies/Art/Shaping/History). SMASH produces numerous culturally significant surf events in New York and will be producing the SMASH Surf, Film, Art Festival this summer.

Over the next few months I’ll be sharing personal stories that show the act of doing kind deeds in order to understand why people give themselves over to helping others. Through conversations with friends, profiles of surf studios and maybe a podcast or two, I’ll be exploring these themes. For me, doing the kind thing is about empathizing and showing compassion. You don’t have to save the world—sometimes you just need to be there for someone to make a difference.